If You Think Eggs Are As Bad As Smoking, The Yolks On You

Two egg producers have recalled more than 500 million chicken eggs are apparently contaminated with salmonella bacteria, after hundreds of people have become sick, according to the Food and Drug Administration. (Photo credit should read Abdullah Pope/AFP/Getty Images)(credit: Abdullah Pope/Getty Images)

A new study in the journal Atherosclerosis has a lot of people wondering if the everyday, edible eggs is going to give them a heart attack.

But not so fast — jumping to conclusions may lead to egg on your face, not in your heart.

Researchers followed a group of 100 people, average age 61, and measured the plaque buildup in their arteries by ultrasound.

They then asked these people about whether they smoked, how many eggs they ate per week, their blood pressure and other lifestyle factors.

They concluded that people who ate more than three eggs per week had almost as much clogging of the arteries as people who smoked.

Oh-oh. Time to shell the eggs out of the diet.

But not so fast.

Researchers did not look at other factors, such as exercise patterns and what other foods people ate. For example, what about couch potato people who ate bacon with their eggs, or had ice cream every night for dessert. Now those are things that will really shoot your cholesterol up — you can’t just blame the egg.

Plus, a lot of the smokers in the study were also big egg eaters, so the number of people who ate more than 3 eggs a week and did not smoke and were studied were small in number.

And most importantly, this was a survey study. There was no proof an egg yolk makes a beeline to your heart arteries. In other words, no direct link was shown.

Bottom line, sure, don’t eat zillions of eggs per week. But then again, watch your weight, get some exercise, and watch the other fatty foods you’re putting in your mouth and arteries.

As for blaming the egg, this study is rotten. It got a lot of headlines, but didn’t prove a lot. In other words, it laid an egg. More research is needed.